Sensation: Dubai Open won by Wang Hao

4/14/2005 – Wang Who?? The question and the question marks are justified. The clear first place winner is a Chinese player who left 53 GMs and 30 IMs gasping for air. We say player because Wang has no FIDE title. It gets worse: he turned 16 during round five of the event. Clearly we are going to have to watch this lad. Full report with games, results and lots of pictures.

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The 7th Dubai Open, which ran from April 3rd to 13th, 2005, was organised
by the Dubai Chess & Culture Club under the auspices of H.H.Sheikh Rashid
Bin Hamdan Al Maktum. The prize fund was US $40,000, with special prizes for
local players of US $5,000. The rate of play in the nine-round Swiss tournament
is one hour 30 minutes for the whole game with an incremental time of 30 seconds
per move.

The tournament ended with a surprise win by Wang Hao of China, who celebrated
his 16th birthday on April 8th, during round five. The lad is rated 2484, but
still has no FIDE title. Here are the top results of the Dubai Open.

Report and picture gallery

By Andreas Albers

"Mr .Andreas, don't ask why, just come to the lobby at 10 a.m."
I wondered what this invitation by Mohamed Ali Maghawry could be about. Mohamed,
a young Egyptian, is the chief organiser of the tournament, and the expression
on his face revealed nothing.

Naturally I was there at the specified time, together with Shirin Navabi,
the Iranian player, with her mother, GMs Alexander Motylev, Merab Gagunashvili
and Mihail Kobalia, Tea Lanchava, Anastasia Sorokina, Alisa Maric and her
friend, Yugoslav FM and journalist Josip Asik.

We drive through the city of Dubai, still unaware of where Mohamed is taking
us

Chess players in the minibus of the organiser

Then it looms up ahead of us, Burj Al-Arab, the only seven-star hotel in
the world

Mohamed has arranged that we can visit this famous hotel

The lobby of the Burj Al-Arab

One of the restaurants

Relaxing in a lobby filled with scents of roses and incense

Alisa Maric

Josip Asik, the Yugoslav journalist, dares to look up

And this is what he sees

Mihail Kobalia is fascinated by the carpets

A group photo in the most beautiful and expensive hotel in the world

The tournament

Young Wang Hao (left) in action

Another strong Chinese player: Zhang Zhong, in the runner-up field (2–11)

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

The introductory position of the Kasparov Gambit can occur after 1 d4,1 Nf3 and 1 c4, which can appeal to a wide range of players. The usual move order is 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 Nf3 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e5!? 5 Nb5 d5 6 cxd5 Bc5 bringing us to a very sharp position. On this 60 mins, FIDE Senior Trainer Andrew Martin argues the case from the Black side, showing both classic Kasparov masterpieces and games from the present day and suggests that White's defensive task is not easy. This is a practical gambit which will help players at all levels to win more games. It is ideal for must-win situations with Black. It is a gambit that White cannot decline,as if he does, Black gets a good position instantly. White must take up the cudgels and fight!